大象传媒

This story was submitted to the People鈥檚 War site by Bruce Logan of the CSV Media NI Team on behalf of Thomas Houston and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions.
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I was in the Merchant Navy. I joined as an Apprentice in the Head Line and went on from an Apprentice to serve my 4 yrs and then get my 2nd Mate's Ticket, which allowed me to qualify for a position of Navigation, which they called Second mate.
I joined before the war, after I had left school. It was a case I think that so many of the family had been at sea, it was only natural for me also to want to get away whenever I was finished at school. My father was in the bank, and then they went in the First World War. He is the recipient of the Military Cross - of course, he's dead now, but it's just something that we cherish.

The ship that I was on was called the Bengore Head. Each and every ship that the Head Line had, they went round the coast, and if you went round the coast you would get different heads - Bengore Head, Dunaff head and Belmore Head - all these would be Head boats, and it was known as the Head Line. That was how it was getting its name. It was a Northern Ireland-owned Company, situated in Belfast. The Company there was then the Head line, which they took as their name, although it was later on known as the Ulster Steamship Company.

The Surface raiders did have an effect on Capt Milner's ship, which was the Melmore Head. He was a survivor of that. That was the only convoy that any Head line boats were in that was attacked by surface raiders. There were plenty of others that were attacked, like myself, by submarines or U-boats, as they called them.

The Headline had quite a few boats. One small boat, the Fair Head, was in dock and it got bombed and sunk in the Belfast dock.

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